Jimmy_041 wrote:
Joyce's legacy coming to fruition
Qantas now have one of the oldest fleets in the air
Those figures always need to be taken into context and seperated.
Qantas does has one of the oldest fleets but this is mainly due to their large number of domestic narrow bodies and no shock that airlines such as Qantas, Delta and United are older as Australia and the US have quite a decent size domestic route map. The 737’s which make up close to half of the fleet are getting very long in the tooth and absolutely this is on Joyce for not planning ahead. I will say though that the 737’s are absolute workhorses and are very well maintained and in the condition they are in could easily go another 5-10 years. The 717’s have been finally retired as new A220’s and E190’s have arrived.
What I don’t blame Joyce for is the long haul wide body fleet as he planned well in advance for that and aircraft were ordered well ahead of time. A little thing called Covid put the squeeze on production though and they are now 5 years behind. The A330’s which make up the bulk of the wide bodies are getting on but they are still in very good condition, well maintained and very rarely breakdown. The A321’s will start arriving soon and will start to replace the A330’s and a couple more are scheduled to be converted into freighters for APG.
The 787’s are still modern and in great shape so no issue there. The A380’s are the ones causing most of the issues for Qantas and they were due to be phased out when Covid hit and now the new A350’s have been delayed then the big birds have had to stay. Unfortunately the A380’s are costly to maintain and very limited places where they can be repaired which is why most airlines are phasing them out. All in all Qantas don’t have any more delays or maintenance issues than most other airlines but when a A380 goes U/S then there are massive issues.